Female Speaker:
Today we welcome Robert Watt, a Highland bagpipe player from South County Derry, and Daithi Sproule, a singer and guitarist from Derry City. Like all of the live events that we sponsor, this concert is being recorded and will become part of our permanent collections in our archive of folk culture, so that in the future any researcher with the interest or anyone who loves Irish music can hear these wonderful recordings again.
Now, to introduce Robert Watt to you and to tell you a little bit more about the Rediscover Northern Ireland program, I'm going to introduce to you Philip Hammond, who is the Creative Director for the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure in Northern Ireland. Phillip is a composer and musician, and we welcome you again. Thanks, Phillip.
[ applause ]
Philip Hammond:
Welcome to this wonderful venue, the Coolidge Auditorium, which, of course, is one of the most historical venues not only in Washington, but in the world, for music. And the Rediscover Northern Ireland program has done a number of events here, starting back in March with Barry Douglas who was here with his Camerata, and they squeezed onto this wonderful little auditorium. Since then, of course, we have had a number of traditional music events which have been quite astounding in the fact that I've learned so much. I'm a [ unintelligible ] classical musician. And I have learned so much about traditional music by coming to America. And that might be surprising to you but that's the way it is.
And I would like to introduce Robert, first of all, but also to say that Daithi Sproule is also from Northern Ireland. He, in fact, doesn't live in Northern Ireland any longer, he's -- what I was saying to him, an ex-pat, but he said "No, no, no, I'm still a Northern Irish person at heart." So first of all, Robert Watt, one of the most exciting young Highland pipers that I certainly have ever heard, and I'm very, very pleased to introduce him, to thank the Library of Congress for hosting this event and all the other events. Thank you very much.
[ applause ]
Robert Watt:
Thank you very much indeed, Phillip. Thanks, ladies and gentlemen. It's a pleasure to be here in Washington to play a few tunes for you this afternoon. It's the first time I have been back here in about, I think, five or six years since I first came to Washington, and my first trip to the United States as well. I've got a selection of different types of pipe tunes to play for you over the next half hour or so, and I hope you enjoy them. They are many of my favorite tunes, and I'll try and give you a range of all different styles of tunes from Ireland and Scotland and who knows where else. We'll see what happens.
I have brought a set list. I rarely follow it, but we'll see what happens as well. Any of you who have been to any of my previous performances that I have done will know that I like to wear the kilt when I'm playing the pipes. It feels right to play the pipes and wear the kilt, especially when you're marching and the kilt is swinging and all that stuff, but also, I always wear a Glengarry. Some people call it a hat or a cap, but the proper name is a Glengarry for this particular piece of clothing, and I always wear this just simply to keep the hair out of my eyes when I'm playing.
[ laughter ]
[ bagpipe music ]
[ applause ]
Thank you very much indeed. The first set of tunes -- I started off with just a 6/8 march, a normal piping tune to start off, a march tune. It was called "Farewell to the Creeks," and then a sort of competition, but traditional style jigs. The first one was called "Kenny Gillies of Portnalong and Skye," and "The Atholl Highlanders" is a tune which is played commonly in Irish and Scottish traditional sessions all around the world these days. I'd like to play maybe two hornpipes next. The hornpipes I have chosen, "Bobby Cuthbertson" and "Tom Benzlum" [ spelled phonetically ]. They're both traditional Scottish hornpipe dance tunes, so if you can imagine the dancers dancing to these, and if you care to take the floor yourself maybe there's a little bit of room at the front. But the two hornpipes to continue on with, and then maybe a few Strathspeys and reels after that.
[ hornpipe music ]
[ applause ]
Thanks again. Two hornpipes there. Moving on to maybe a few -- well, one Strathspey and two or three reels. The tunes that I've chosen now are tunes from the West Coast of Scotland right up in the Hebrides and the island of South Uist, where many of the great pipers came from, and some would argue was actually the home of piping, although the people in Skye might not be too happy with that. But some of these tunes, most of them are songs all sang in Gaelic, of course, and great musical tunes mostly for dancing and for working and all other sorts of activities. So a Strathspey, which would have been probably used for dancing, and three reels to follow it, and then maybe just to continue on with that, a march, a competition-style 2/4 march called "Mrs. John MacColl," which was composed by one of the great composers of light music -- all the light music, the marches, Strathspeys and reels; John MacColl. So I'll play this for you. I hope you like this.
[ bagpipe music ]
[ applause ]
Thank you very much indeed. The music that I have played so far has been what we would call in Scotland, or which would be described as light music. It's all of the lighter tunes, the marches, Strathspeys, reels, jigs, hornpipes. But the music that was played on this instrument, the great Highland bagpipe, way back 1600s was indeed the Piobaireachd, or the classical music as a sort of norm for the pipes. Many of these tunes were composed by the McCrimmons in Skye in the 1600s. The McCrimmons were appointed to the chief of the clan that McCloud -- of McClouds in Skye at that time, and the McCrimmons composed many great tunes, many of them which are written down in the collection of the Piobaireachd Society today. And the main prizes for piping in the piping world today is for that music, and some of the tunes can be quite demanding, lasting maybe 20 minutes long.
I thought I should at least give you a sample of one. Not the full tune, because we don't have time today, but at least sort of an idea or an introduction to Piobaireachd; for, many people, I'm sure, haven't heard this type of music played on the bagpipe before. The tune which I thought I might play is "Lament for the Earl of Antrim." Now, it wasn't uncommon for the West coast clans to come across to Ireland and fight at that time with the people in Ireland as well. Probably this was around the late 1600s when this was composed, so they could have been fighting against Queen Elizabeth I; that's a possibility around this time. But they were certainly connected with the Earl of Antrim, and Patrick Moore McCrimmon composed the tune "Lament for the Earl of Antrim."
He must have been quite a character himself as well, because while he was in Ireland his brother was killed in another battle by the McKenzies at Canteel [ spelled phonetically ], and the chief of the clan demanded that he didn't leave the isle of Skye for one year after this. But when his year was up, he did go after the guy who killed his brother. And he couldn't find the guy who actually killed him, so he burnt out the Hudson Canteel, and supposedly got his pipes out and played and composed a tune on the spot called "A Flame of Wrath for Squinting Patrick," who was his brother. So I'm not sure if all these stories are correct, but in Ireland we like a good story. And even if they're not sure, that's a nice wee bit of something to talk about, anyway.
I'll just play the grounds of the tune, which is sort of like the theme of the entire Piobaireachd. The Piobaireachd itself has several variations of this ground or theme, and getting progressively more difficult as the tune goes o, and then finishes up back with the ground again. So I'd like to play just the ground and the last variations of the tune going back into the ground. Before that I'll maybe just play a few of the Gaelic airs, just to try and get the drones nicely in tune. For me, when the pipes are going really well, Piobaireachd is a great opportunity to hear the pipes sounding in their full glory. But after having stopped for a few minutes, it might just take a minute to get them back in tune. So I'll play a few Gaelic airs in the meantime.
[ bagpipe music ]
[ applause ]
Thank you very much. That was just the grind and the last two variations of "Lament for the Earl of Antrim," so hopefully that has given you a little idea of what a Piobaireachd is actually about. And there is about another 15 minutes to that tune of different variations as well, so maybe some other time I'll play the whole tune for you. I'd like to finish off maybe just with one last set of tunes, and we have another great artist coming on stage in a moment I'm looking forward to hearing as well. And I'd just like to say thank you very much to everyone who has made this possible for me.
The American Folklife Center, of course, all the people there, who have made the event today happen and all the other great events which are happening, and also to Dr. Philip Hammond who coordinated everything for me on the other side of the Atlantic. Thanks very much indeed. I leave you just with -- sort of the idea, as I got it today, was to be sort of a traditional day for the bagpipes, for me, demonstrating a few traditional tunes, and a tune which I am always asked for -- and I'm sure every American will appreciate this tune.
A lot of musicians shy away from playing this tune because it's such a common tune, but I think it's very much a part of tradition, and you'll appreciate it today. I'd like to play for you "Amazing Grace," followed by two reels -- well, really, one's a hornpipe and the other is a reel, but I'm going to play them both like reels. One is called "Crossing the Minch," which is an area of water between the west coast of Scotland and Skye, out there in Uist, and finishing off with a great tune called "The Mason's Apron." So, thanks very much for listening, and enjoy the rest of the afternoon.
[ bagpipe music ]
[ applause ]
Steve Winnick:
I'm Steve Winnick of the American Folklife Center here at the Library of Congress, and something that we didn't tell you before is that this concert is actually a part of two different series. It is part of our Rediscover Northern Ireland program, but it's also part of our Homegrown concert series. And the way that works is that we sort of scour the country for the best traditional musicians across the US. And in this case, this concert fits into both because, of course, Robert is from Northern Ireland and lives in Northern Ireland, and our next performer, Daithi Sproule, was born in Northern Ireland and raised there in Derry City, but he has lived since the late '70s here in the United States, in the Twin Cities, in fact.
So, Daithi is one of the foremost performers on voice and guitar in Irish music. He was part of a quartet in Ireland that was very important called Skara Brae way back in the '60s and '70s, and then he came over here and was part of many important groups including Trian with Billy McComiskey, who lives in our general region, and Liz Carroll, and then of course in the traditional band Altan, which is perhaps the best known Irish traditional group playing today. So, Daithi is really a great singer and guitarist, and we're really, really proud and happy to have him here today.
There's another secret that I have to tell you, which is that today is actually Daithi's birthday. And so in addition to having Daithi come out and sing and play for us, I'm actually going to ask Robert to come back out and lead us all in happy birthday.
[ applause ]
[ Singing and playing Happy Birthday. ]
Daithi Sproule
Well, that's a first for me. That's lovely. It's lovely to be here, and I have had a lot of great times in Washington, even when I first came to the States, in this area, so there's a lot of happy associations. And it's also the first time I've ever been asked to do anything as a singer from the North of Ireland, specifically. So that's a very nice thing to happen at this advanced age. So I'll just start with a song, an Irish one, and tell you about it afterwards.
[ music ]
[ applause ]
Thanks very much. Thank you. Well, I don't know whether Robert made this comment when he started his set, but of course, you make your set list, and then you don't do what you planned to do. And that one just popped into my head when I was listening to Robert during the Piobaireachd Fair, which was wonderful. And that's a song called [ inaudible ], and it's a song that was written by a poet, I think, called Art McCoffee [ spelled phonetically ]. I should be certain of that, but I think it is, and it's a type that's very common in Irish; it's called an ashling poem.
And in these poems a poet went out and he had this vision of a beautiful woman. And sometimes the poet had fallen sleep, or sometimes he saw the woman when he was awake, but she would approach him. And he'd interrogate her and ask her who she was, and sometimes the woman looks very beaten up and ragged and tattered, and he's asking her, "Well, what's the problem?" And he asks her is she Helen of Troy or is she Deretree [ spelled phonetically ], or is she the various goddesses, and she says, "No, no, no, I'm not any of those people."
And in this particular song there's many, many beautiful lines. And I'd like to have the time to translate the whole thing for you, but she says she is a little fairy woman, in fact, but the idea really is that she personifies Ireland, and Ireland is in a bad way, in oppression, and these poems were expressions of hope that something would improve sometime. And of course, it's great to do a thing that has a theme of Northern Ireland at this time when there's peace, and then the likes of Ian Paisley and Mark McGinnis are sitting together. It's a wonderful time for lovers of peace. But anyhow, so now I'll sing a song in English that I learned from a singer from Derry called Brian Mullin, who is going to be over, I think, as part of this whole celebration. And it's very much a local song, so that's why I'm going to do it.
[ music ]
[ applause ]
Thanks very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks very much. And so, you know, all the traditional musicians are very aware of the fact that they get their music from other people, and we treasure the memories of who we got different songs from, so that last one is from Brian Mullin, who is a friend of mine from Derry. And he was very close to my brother and me, actually, and I learned the song from a tape that my brother made of my friend Brian. But anyhow, Brian -- I'm delighted to see his name in writing in association with these Northern Ireland concerts and so on, because he's just such a wonderful person.
And this next song I'm going to sing has the same sort of great feeling for me because I got it from a friend of mine called John Heeley [ spelled phonetically ]. And he's been an Irish scholar and an Irish speaker for many years, so he usually goes by the name Sean O'Heeley [ spelled phonetically ], and you can -- he has a program on [ inaudible ] after the Irish language radio network. You can get his program on the Web if you want; I often listen to him. And I was fortunate enough that as a teenager, just when I started learning traditional songs and arranging them for guitar, which I did almost at the -- well, one thing quickly followed the other, and this friend of mine in class turned out to be some sort of closet musical genius.
And he had developed a whole style of guitar accompaniment and a style of arranging these wonderful songs out of nowhere, just based on nothing except his own imagination, and very strictly -- well, any solo concert I do I'm always singing songs either from him or inspired by his approach. And this is one of the first songs I learned from him, and it's called [ inaudible ], and it's a very well known Donegal song; very, very beautiful, and the words say, you know, the man is sitting and it's late at night. He's actually staying up all night, and he's stoking the final embers of the fire and thinking about his loved one who is now far away. And it praises her beautifully in one of the verses, and then he says that -- obviously they are separated, and he says that learned folks say that love is a destructive, harmful, serious disease when it strikes you, and so he now agrees with this.
He didn't used to believe it until it had stricken his own heart. And now in the last verse he says that he meets a fairy woman on the road and asks her is there any cure for this terrible ailment, and she says there's no cure until you die; an upbeat little theme for lunchtime.
[ music ]
[ applause ]
Thank you. Thank you. An awful lot of my songs I learned in Donegal, and I used to go there every summer to learn the Irish language as a teenager. And I heard some songs from local people, you know, in their houses, but a lot of the songs I learned just in classes which we had in the afternoons, and there were several wonderful teachers there who taught us the local stuff. And the reason I'm thinking of this song is because it's a bit jollier than the last couple. It's called [ inaudible ], and it's a very bright little song, love song, which doesn't seem to have a happy ending -- or, sorry, doesn't seem to have an unhappy ending, is what I mean. I'll do this for Myron, my friend Myron sitting there.
[ music ]
[ applause ]
Thank you. Thank you. Well, I know that there are a fair number of serious musical scholars and ethnomusicologists in the audience; people who are interested in folklore, and so there are a couple of songs I'll sing without [ unintelligible ]. Obviously one of the puzzles of being a musician who sings with a guitar is that we are getting songs from a tradition in which there is no accompaniment. And immediately when you start putting accompaniment, two things: it changes them, and inevitably changes them, so, ever since I started playing the guitar I have been puzzled at trying to keep something of the feeling of the unaccompanied song, while at the same time accompanying it. You might well say, "Well, why don't you just sing unaccompanied?" but the thing is I am a guitarist, so I love the guitar.
So I'll actually sing you two songs, and maybe that will do me for the day, I'm not sure. But I'll sing you two songs that stayed unaccompanied for many, many, many years in my head. And in fact, the first one is a song that I sang on stage in Ranafast at the age of 14. It was almost the first traditional song I sang in public as a teenager. But anyhow, I never really got an accompaniment for it until the last few years, and I recorded this with Altan, this band I play with. So I'll do it. It's called [ inaudible ]. It's another beautiful, sad love song.
[ music ]
[ applause ]
Thank you very much. So, maybe I'll sing three songs. And the first one will be not in the category I just mentioned, but one is arranged recently. This is a song called "The Lurkee [ spelled phonetically ] Streams," and again, it mentions places around and near Derry, so it's nice associations. And I learned a version of this song from a recording of a great Derry traditional singer, Kevin Mitchell, who I was lucky enough to meet and see at a party just when I was 18 or 19. And I think he was within a few days of moving to Scotland where he's lived ever since, so I was very lucky to see him there.
And I didn't meet him until many years later. And I met him in Scotland, and he's a wonderful singer, a unique singer and a lovely man, but definitely hearing him that one night inspired me and stayed with me always. But the funny thing was I learned this song, "The Lurkee Streams," from a record of his -- I learned it in Dublin -- and I went up to Derry and I was standing at the kitchen sink helping my mother wash the dishes, which I never did as a teenager or as a child, but as an adult I came to the age of reason and I helped her with the dishes -- but I would stand there, and all of a sudden she started singing this song, and I couldn't believe it.
I said, "That's 'The Lurkee Streams,'" and she said, "Yeah, of course." I said, "I just learned that song from a Kevin Mitchell album." And she said, "But your father used to sing that song all the time." And I didn't remember him singing it, but she and my father used a different melody. So I'll use that melody now just for the fun of it. It's a nice little song.
[ music ]
[ applause ]
Thanks very much. Thank you. Thank you. Well, I'll just sing this one more song. I'd like to thank Thea and Steve and Jennifer for -- they were the people who were dealing with me when I was planning on coming here, and it's just been lovely and a privilege to be here and hear some of the wonderful people who have played on this stage. I'm delighted to be in their company. So, I'm just making tweaks. So I'll finish with this song, and I think it's a really extraordinarily beautiful song. It's called [ inaudible ], and it means the dark woman of the valley. And there are different variations of this known all over the Irish and Gaelic speaking world, and this song I heard from a recording of [ inaudible ].
It's another of the formative things that happens to you as a musician; there are certain albums you hear, and I heard this when I got the album, when I was about 14 or 15, and I never heard of the uilleann pipes at that point in my life. Not only had I not heard them, I hadn't even heard of them, and he played the pipes and sang songs. So he sang this beautiful song, and I think it's a melody that's very appropriate for pipers and fiddlers to play as an instrumental, and they often do. But there's something very intriguing and strange about the rhythm of the song no matter whether you try to sing it unaccompanied or accompanied, so in the last couple of years I got it into this groove that I hope begins to do some justice to it. And so, again, thanks very much.
[ music ]
[ applause ]
Thank you very much.
Female Speaker:
Thank you very much. Let me bring out Robert Watt again. Robert.
[ applause ]
And thank both Daithi and Robert for a great concert. Thanks very much.
[ applause ]
[ end of transcript ]